The rafale B and M share the exact same dimensions as the C and are an entire ton heavier. You also can’t really compare the rafale to the EFT that way since they use completely different composites.
For example, the EFT uses bigger, heavier engines. It also needs leads to added weight for the structure to support those engines. Plus, as you said, the EFT is also bigger than the rafale in all 3 dimensions, so the weight/scale ratio increases at the cube of the size difference.
Overall, both planes still retain a similar TWR at low fuel (with the. EFT being ever so slightly better, so the weight difference doesn’t really seem crazy
Edit : and that 30% composite for the rafale is 99% wrong as far as I can tell btw. I don’t have any numbers in mind, but I’m quite certain there’s an error here
Edit 2 : it seems you are comparing the rapetitiln of composite per weight for the rafale (30% of carbon composite), to the equivalent surface of composite of the EFT (82%). If you want better comparaison the rafale has 75% of its surfaces made of carbon composite, which makes the comparaison drastically different
The engines are only 100 kg heavier for 1/1,5 tons more thrust. (EJ200 → ~1.000 kg, M88 → 897 kg).
Ironically the Rafale is higher than the EF even if the Rafale is built for carrier hangars where height usually is a problem. And the dimensions are not that different (the EF is 0,69 m longer, 0,15 m wider and 0,06 m lower with 4,3 m² more wing surface).
I (think I) used the composite usage by weight and not by surface. The Rafale portion I took from here:
75 % de la surface “mouillée” du Rafale est en matériaux composites. Ils représentent 1000 kg, soit 30 % de la masse de la cellule ", rappelle Jean-Michel Estrade.
75% of the Rafale’s “wet” surface is made of composite materials. They represent 1,000 kg, or 30% of the airframe’s mass," recalls Jean-Michel Estrade.
I interpret this as 30% mass portion for composites for the airframe.
So, 200kg for both engines, and a structure that needs to support those 1.5 tons of increased thrust.
Which makes the aircraft overall much heavier. ~70cm longer is still quite significant. Plus the wing area means worse wing loading at high G which also needs heavier structure to hold everything.
Yes, but it’s impossible for the EFT to have 80+% mass of composite. You are most likely referring to surface area, in which case you need to use the same metric for the rafale. This would be 75% of the area of the rafale being composites. This is much more in line with the EFT
It’s pretty simple, Eurofighter is carrying the weight of being the sexiest top tier aircraft + the sheer mass of all the nerfs they needed to hit it with to let everyone else win sometimes.
Low key it makes sense that the prototypes would be heavier than the production variant as the prototypes would have to test a lot of various subsystems and weapons and such that wouldn’t be on the final product
All I will say is that the empty weight listed in certain documents includes things that the empty weight in game does not include. And I strongly suspect that if you properly account for those factors, you will find out that the empty mass in the your document actually shows the aircraft to be too heavy in game.
